The Invisible Embrace

The queens discuss breaking open the closet doors through the work of Paul Monette.
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Paul Monette (October 16, 1945--February 10, 1995) was the author of at least 4 novels: Taking Care of Mrs. Carroll (1978), The Gold Diggers (1979), Afterlife (1990), and Halfway Home (1991). He also wrote Sanctuary, a fable, which was illustrated by Vivienne Flesher and published posthumously in 1997.

His first nonfiction book, Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1988) received a National Book Critic's Circle Award nomination and won a Lambda Literary Award. His second memoir is Becoming a Man; his third book of nonfiction is Last Watch of the Night, published in 1994.

His books of poems are The Carpenter at the Asylum, in 1975; No Witness (1981), and Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog (1988). His New and Selected Poems is called West of Yesterday, East of Summer (1994). He died of complications due to aids on February 10, 1995.

Watch Monette's iconic 1994 appearance on the Charlie Rose show here (~20 minutes).

Watch this terrific wide-ranging interview with Paul Monette conducted in September 1993 by Sheila James Kuehl (1 hour).

You can see the poet Philip Clark, co-editor of Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS, read Monette’s poem "Your Sightless Days” here. (~5 mins). Recorded live at Bloombars in Washington D.C., June 8, 2011.

The anthology that Aaron references is titled Poets for Life: Seventy-Six Poets Respond to AIDS. Aaron is right: Monette has 6 poems in that anthology, which was edited by Michael Klein.

The Best Little Boy in the World was published in 1973 under the pseudonym John Reid. The book was re-released in 1998 alongside its sequel, The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up, under the author’s real name, Andrew Tobias.

Read an essay entitled “Paul Monette’s AIDS Poetry” at the Yale Review.